


Rookie Days

by seatbeltdrivein



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Dark Comedy, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-13
Updated: 2011-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-16 22:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seatbeltdrivein/pseuds/seatbeltdrivein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed didn't think he'd ever get used to seeing violence up-close and personal, and Roy really, really wasn't helping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rookie Days

It was, without a doubt, the deadest looking hooker he had ever seen. Granted, Ed hadn't ever really seen that many hookers, but he was pretty damn certain they weren't supposed to look like _that._

"I take it back," he said, glancing up at the colonel. "I take it all back— _stop laughing at me you shitty old man_!" The stupid bastard kept right on laughing. "Come on, she's dead, _why are you laughing at me_?"

The rain ruined the crime scene. Her blood stretched in an oblong shape outward from her head, trailing through the cracks in the pavement down until it stopped at the front door of a flower shop.

"Her head's pretty busted in." Ed swallowed thickly, looking away. "What did it?"

"Something blunt and hard," the colonel replied, tone dry, as he took another bite of the sandwich he'd bought from a street vendor on their way to the scene. How he wasn't disgusted was completely beyond Ed. He wasn't even going to touch on how fucked up it was that the man could eat while looking at a dismembered corpse.

"Why us?" Ed groaned. "Why _me_?"

"The Fuhrer," Roy said after much deliberation, "passed the orders down himself." Another large bite and Ed was getting ready to spew all down the front of the colonel's fancy uniform. "Apparently, he thinks we've not had enough to do."

"Enough?" Ed gaped. "We have more than enough to do! I'm an alchemist, for fuck's sake! Where's Hughes?"

"He has more important things to do than investigate the death of a nameless prostitute, Fullmetal." Roy glanced at him briefly, then back at the corpse. "You're looking a little pale."

"No shit."

"This isn't the worst thing you've ever seen, Fullmetal."

"I can—I can see her brains, all right? That's just fucked up."

"And here I thought you were a man of science." Roy paused. "Boy. A boy of science."

"I fucking hate you."

"Charming." Another bite. "Oh, I think I've spotted her arm," Roy said, squinting, finger pointed outward. "Is that it?"

Ed leaned forward, glancing from the body ( _oh god ew_ ) to the vendor they'd stopped at, just below the cart ( _oh fuck not right_ ). "Yeah," he said faintly, swallowing, "that looks like an arm."

Roy polished off the sandwich, pointedly chewing—loudly—in Ed's direction. "Well, Fullmetal?" He gave Ed a look, the kind that said _and here's where I take advantage of being a higher rank_. "Aren't you going to go get it?"

It was official, Ed thought, staring at Roy, eyes wide with horror. His life _sucked_.

*

The scene took two hours to clean, between the rain and Ed's contrariness. By the time he and Roy climbed into the military escort car, they were soaked to the point of pruning, and Roy knew without checking that all six pairs of the gloves he'd brought along were ruined.

"Just get me back to the dorm," Ed instructed the driver. "Al's waiting."

"He can wait a bit longer," Roy cut in. "We aren't finished."

"The hell does that mean?" Ed demanded. " _Not finished_? What the fuck else do we have to do? Shovel shit?"

Roy sighed, tugging the gloves from his hands and jamming them into his pocket. "That was only the first stop."

"The first stop."

"The fuhrer has a list of items needing attended to."

" _The first stop._ "

"To the Entertainment District," Roy spoke to the driver, ignoring his subordinate's spluttering. "The west end."

The west end was the seedy end of the Entertainment District, the one with the whorehouses that always managed to slide under the military's radar (via carefully shuffled cenz) and the bars where anyone could get a drink, so long as they stood tall enough to look over the counter and order one.

"This is ridiculous." Ed gave Roy look, making sure he was aware of just who he blamed. "Fucking beyond ridiculous. Who in the fuck—"

"Language, Fullmetal," the colonel tutted absentmindedly. "Stop here."

The driver pulled the car to the curb in one smooth motion, as if he'd known exactly where and when they were going to stop all along.

Ed sagged in his seat. It was, he knew, the beginning of a very long night.

They'd arrived at the first scene around seven in the evening, and by the time they'd completed the Fuhrer's mission, it was half past three in the morning.

A serial killer, the colonel had said. Three women dead, all involved in prostitution, all so far off the radar that no one would miss them, not really. Ed felt sick from apathy.

"They have no identification," Roy said, pushing Ed into the car face first and climbing in after him. "We can't alert the families if we don't know who they are."

"That's such shit," Ed muttered, sitting upright and crossing his arms. "Just 'cause they're—who they are," he finished awkwardly.

"Even still, there's an obvious connection." The colonel sighed, running a hand through his hair, every movement heavy with exhaustion.

"Well, no shit," Ed huffed.

"You're missing the point. Every death was the same. Each woman was involved in the sex industry. They were all estimated between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five." The colonel ticked each item off from some mental list. "There's every reason to believe that the same person is behind each murder, and that being the case, this won't be the last we see of him."

"Him?" Ed demanded. "How do you know it's a _him_?"

"The M.O was blunt force trauma," Roy said. "It's possible for a woman, of course, but very unlikely. You didn't read the field guide did you?"

"I didn't know there was a field guide!"

"There isn't," the driver called back. The screen separating the compartments scrolled open and a waft of tobacco smoke drifted through.

"Havoc?" Ed blinked. "When did you get here?"

"Hello to you too, boss." Havoc gave a tired grin. "Shift changed two hours ago, while the two of you were still playing 'find the pieces' for your hooker."

The colonel made a face, nose wrinkling in disgust. "I thank you kindly for not ever saying that again," he began, "and also for stopping somewhere. If I'm to function, there will need to be coffee."

"Lots of it!" Ed interjected.

"Copious amounts of coffee," Roy insisted. "And I need it now, as in ten minutes ago."

"Your wish is my command," Havoc intoned, pulling out into the main street.

"And you're payin', bastard," Ed grumbled. "It's gonna take damn _weeks_ to get this shit out of my head."

"It builds character," Roy insisted, but when Havoc pulled up to the sidewalk in front of some diner or other, Roy didn't ask for Ed's money, like he did with Havoc.

And when he returned to the car, three coffees balanced in his arms, Roy made no move to wake his youngest subordinate. Instead, he climbed into the front seat and smirked into the rear view mirror.

"Knew that was gonna happen," Havoc said, grinning.

"He'll get used to it," Roy said, and handed Havoc a styrofoam mug. "I mean, if _you_ can—"

"Oh, haha," Havoc grumbled. "A guy passes out _once_ and it gets brought up every five seconds? I should've damn gone to school."

Roy just laughed.


End file.
